Sunday, January 13, 2013

Humbling

Sometimes I read the words of a another, and see in
them a certain kind of soul. It's almost like meeting someone who
shares the same birthday. A kind of warmth, the sharing of an
invisible, which is always more like a song, or a drum beat, or
something like a good yesterday that might have come again.
It's a good feeling. But quite what to call it I don't know.
There should be no implication of comradeship in the sharing of a birth
date, because of the billions upon the planet, odds are 1/365th of us
will share my birthday, and here I don't believe I was born in a
leap year, which I imagine has some sort of ramification upon the
fraction. Either way, it's well over a million people and probably
closer to two million. Which is staggering.

I can for example read the great
minds and I come away saying pretty much the same thing about each of them that
Walking Stewart said of Shakespeare, which was far from complimentary, and in
his day certainly raised the odd eyebrow in circles genteel. The
height of arrogance on my part, and I have no doubt of this, because I have long
considered myself the epitome of a certain kind of pompous, and an a-hole.
Either that, or it's an improper education, some link in the mind as yet
unconnected, but I don' t believe so. Sometimes though, I read the words
of another and see in those words a soul like the one that walks around when I
walk around. Which is very nice for me, and humbling. Last time it
happened I guess I was eleven, the author was Peter Cheyney, his hero Lemmy
Caution. "The kinda dame that'd just as easily stick you with a stiletto as
order up a chocolate sundae." Or something like that. But I do
remember the last time I met someone who shared my birthday. It didn't end
well.